Nordfriedhof (Munich)

The Nordfriedhof ("Northern Cemetery"), with 34,000 burial plots, is one of the largest cemeteries in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It is situated in the suburb of Schwabing-Freimann. It was established by the former community of Schwabing in 1884. It is not to be confused with the Alter Nordfriedhof in Munich, which was set up only a short time previously within the then territory of the city of Munich.

Chapel (centre), mortuary (left)

View of the cemetery buildings looking towards the burial ground, 1901 (from G A Horst, Die neuen Friedhof-Anlagen Münchens)

Mourner on the monument of Julius Braeutigam (d. 1905) (electrotype by Fidel Binz, WMF, Geislingen

A station on the Munich U-Bahn is also called Nordfriedhof after the cemetery, and the surrounding area is also known locally as "Nordfriedhof" from the station.

The imposing cemetery buildings include a chapel, a mortuary and a burial wall, which was designed between 1896 and 1899 by the municipal architect Hans Grässel. In 1962 a columbarium was added to the north by the architect Eugen Jacoby.

The chapel is described, slightly altered, in Thomas Mann's novella Death in Venice, when the sight of it precipitates a foreboding of death in the protagonist.

Selected burials

• Peter Paul Althaus, poet of Schwabing
• Herb Andress, actor
• Annette von Aretin, first female announcer of Bayerischer Rundfunk
• August Arnold, film producer and director
• Karl Arnold, caricaturist in the journal Simplicissimus
• Philip Arp, actor, cabaret performer, author and theatre director
• Gert Bastian, brigadier-general, symbolic figure of the peace movement
• Fritz Benscher, actor and quiz master
• Otto Bezold, politician
• Franziska Bilek, caricaturist and artist
• Louis Braun, professor and historical painter
• Beppo Brem, folk actor
• Georg Britting, writer
• Christine Buchegger, actress
• Franz von Defregger, artist
• Hans Dölle, legal academic
• Sammy Drechsel, sports reporter and cabaret performer, and his wife Irene Koss, actress and the first television announcer in Germany
• Constanze Engelbrecht, actress
• Oskar Eversbusch, professor of ophthalmology
• Theodore Feucht, painter
• Josef Flossmann, sculptor
• Leonhard Frank, writer
• Hermann Frieb, resistance fighter against the Nazi regime
• Marie Amelie von Godin, writer, supporter of women's rights and Albanologist
• Günter Freiherr von Gravenreuth, lawyer
• Klaus Havenstein, cabaret performer and actor
• Johannes Heesters, actor and singer
• Trude Hesterberg (Schönherr), cabaret performer
• Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler's official photographer, with his daughter Henriette von Schirach
• Kurt Horwitz, actor, director at the Munich Kammerspiele, director of the Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel
• Peter Igelhoff, musician, composer of pop music and jazz
• Günther Kaufmann, actor
• Eduard von Keyserling, writer (grave 25-4-1)
• Kathi Kobus, landlady of the Alter Simpl
• Wolfgang Koeppen, writer
• Oskar Körner, killed during the Munich Putsch, Second Chairman of the NSDAP
• Otto Kurth, actor and director
• Inge Latz, composer and musical healer
• Hermann Lenz, writer
• Ernst Mach, physicist and philosopher
• Ferdinand Marian, actor (grave now removed)
• Georg Marischka, actor and director
• Anton Neuhäusler, Bavarian dialect poet
• Peter Pasetti, actor
• Ludwig Petuel senior and junior, industrialists
• Toni Pfülf, SPD politician
• Bally Prell, performance artist
• Sebastian Osterrieder, sculptor, Krippenwastl
• Theodor von der Pfordten, killed during the Munich Putsch (in family grave)
• Hans Pössenbacher, actor
• Mady Rahl, actress (grave 178-U-66)
• Anton Riemerschmid, founder of the first German business school for girls
• Barbara Rudnik, actress
• Wilhelm von Rümann, sculptor, formerly in the Alten Vereins-Urnenhalle (urn now secured)
• Arnulf Schröder, actor
• Carl-Heinz Schroth, actor
• Oswald Spengler, political philosopher
• Heinz-Günter Stamm, actor, radio and theatre director
• Fedor Stepun, philosopher and sociologist
• Karlheinz Summerer, Roman Catholic chaplain for the Munich Olympics, 1972
• Siegbert Tarrasch, chess player, theoretician and writer
• Kurt Weinzierl, actor, cabaret performer and director
• Frederic Vester, biochemist, environmental expert and writer
• Albert Weisgerber, painter
• Annemarie Wendl, actress
• Otto Wernicke, actor (grave now removed)
• Josef Wittmann, church painter
• Karoline Wittmann, painter
• Paul Wittmann, sculptor
• Eduard Zimmermann, journalist and television presenter
• A mass grave for 2,099 victims of aerial bombardment during World War II has been converted to form a "grove of honour for air raid victims" (Ehrenhain für Luftkriegsopfer), with a monument by Hans Wimmer.

Sources

• Gretzschel, M., 1996: Historische Friedhöfe in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz. Das Reiselexikon. Munich: Callwey ISBN 3-7667-1233-0
• Scheibmayr, E., 1985: Letzte Heimat. Persönlichkeiten in Münchner Friedhöfen 1784–1984 (1st edition). Munich: Edition Scheibmayr [1]
  Continued by:
  Wer? Wann? Wo? Persönlichkeiten in Münchner Friedhöfen. (Teil 1/3, Ergänzung zum Grundwerk und Fortschreibung bis 1989). Munich: Edition Scheibmayr 1989 ISBN 3-9802211-1-3
  Wer? Wann? Wo? Persönlichkeiten in Münchner Friedhöfen. (Teil 2/3, Ergänzung zum Grundwerk und Fortschreibung bis 1996). Munich: Edition Scheibmayr 1997 ISBN 3-9802211-3-X
  Wer? Wann? Wo? Persönlichkeiten in Münchner Friedhöfen. (Teil 3/3, Ergänzung zum Grundwerk und Fortschreibung bis 2002). Munich: Edition Scheibmayr 2002 ISBN 3-9802211-4-8

Notes and references

1. Permalink Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.

External links

• Nordfriedhof on the website of the City of Munich (in German)
• Friedhof.stadt-muenchen.net: graves of well-known people at the Nordfriedhof (in German)
• Graves of those associated with the Nazi era at Nordfriedhof (in English)